InMotion Hosting Review

InMotion Hosting is an LA-based Linux hosting company that runs all the standard hosting setups. With competitive pricing and datacentres on both coasts (LA and DC) they’re a good all round hosting fit for almost any company.

Of particular note is their customer service. InMotion consistently receives praise for its outstanding customer service, and has an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau.

InMotion shared hosting

InMotion offers your stock standard three tier pricing scheme for shared hosting, starting at $7.99 and going up to $15.99 per month. However, those are full price numbers, and (like other hosting companies) they’re virtually always running some sale or another. But that’s their baseline.

Your basic hosting package gets you an SSD server in your choice of data centre, unlimited disk space and monthly transfers, 2 MySQL databases, cPanel control, some ad credits, and your choice of pre-installation of either WordPress, Joomla, or PrestaShop. The better plans include a few add-ons like more ad credits, more MySQL databases, and more websites, domains, and subdomains per account, but the real difference is that more expensive plans are afforded more CPU usage. The lowest tier is afforded 30% of the CPU usage of an average InMotion customer, and the next two tiers are afforded 60% and 100% respectively.

InMotion uses CentOS on all of its servers.

VPS and dedicated hosting

The next option up for those who either want more control or specifically need root access to the server will be looking at their VPS and dedicated hosting packages. Virtual Private Servers start at $44.99 per month full price, and go up to $154.99 per month full price.

All tiers are SSD hosted on RAID 6 fault tolerant disks and include a full cPanel license, plus ample support. Their VPS runs with a standard LAMP setup, and comes with Apache, MySQL, Exim, and network security support as well as hardware maintenance and CentOS patches. The bottom tier comes with 4GB RAM and 2TB of transfers. More expensive plans come with 6GB and 8GB respectively, and 3TB and 4TB of transfers.

When it comes to dedicated hosting, InMotion offers managed dedicated hosting only, and starts at $189.99. The next pricing tiers are $219.99 and $299.99. InMotion offers their dedicated customers the option to configure their hardware, choosing the processor, the hardware, and the primary, secondary, and backup hard drive size. This lets you customize your server (and subsequently, the price) to exactly what you need. More expensive tiers come with better hardware in general and more one on one technician time during your setup.

They also have a whole range of commercial class dedicated servers starting at $419.99 per month.

All of their dedicated servers are managed, so unfortunately it’s not possible to change your Linux distribution even if you have root access. However, their managed dedicated servers do you provide you with a whole range of benefits and services. They’ll do everything from setting up Varnish caching and APC, CSF/LFD or OSSec to implementing NGINX or modify your my.cnf file for optimal performance.

Linux: CentOS

InMotion uses a version of CentOS called Better Linux on their shared servers and VPS, and pure CentOS on their dedicated servers. Better Linux’s core benefit is that it allows InMotion to restrict or allow CPU usage to their clients, creating a more controlled and stable environment. What’s more, it ensures that each customer is getting exactly what they paid for, which benefits the community as a whole since there is little to no resource stealing. Technically, Better Linux also enables throttling that other companies have been harangued for over the years, but InMotion guarantees that they don’t throttle their consumers, and their raft of positive reviews support that claim.

At the time of writing, Better Linux is free but come June 2015 it’s going to charge $9 per month. Whether or not this impacts InMotion remains to be seen.

CentOS is a fantastic Linux distribution. Based on the commercially licensed Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), it’s a community driven distribution that’s (obviously) free. This is reason alone for companies like InMotion to use it instead of licensed options, and these substantial savings are passed on to the consumer. In fact, CentOS mimics almost every aspect of RHEL, and as such is known for its stability, making it well suited to a shared server environment.

Web design

InMotion also provides web design services, which is great for time-strapped small or medium sized businesses looking to get off the ground. While this isn’t a unique add-on, it is useful for a website owner to have one company for all their hosting needs, and design tools are a good way for them to differentiate themselves. However, past reviews from PC Mag as well as examples of their work all are dated and do not reflect a design team who can turn out a future proofed, sleek looking website.

Technical details

Linux, CentOS-based servers only

Shared servers run Better Linux

cPanel access from anywhere

SSH, phpMyAdmin, and phpPgAdmin access

MySQL and PostgreSQL databases

FTP and new account access

Conclusion

InMotion Hosting, with their range of pricing and exemplary customer service are a fantastic host for any website or enterprise operation. Only running Linux helps guarantee the quality of their support, combining the low cost and stability of CentOS with the CPU usage controls of Better Linux means that their shared servers run smoothly virtually all the time. However, if you want more of a hand in choosing your Linux distribution, or have another specific distribution in mind, InMotion’s CentOS, managed server approach might constrict what you want.